


not who you were before

by MontagueFuzzlepeck (orphan_account)



Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - Bennett
Genre: M/M, brief mentions of self harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-05
Updated: 2014-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-03 12:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1744733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/MontagueFuzzlepeck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I just needed to write some fluff. Starts angsty, ends disgustingly happy. Plenty of clichés.</p><p> </p><p>“Irwin,” and saying the name again hurt, “You should go, don’t worry about me, you’re probably busy and I’ll be fine on my own. You don’t want to see me again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	not who you were before

Scripps had been right, Dakin knew. After this long, surely he had to do something. Reckless lust as a teenager was one thing, but once you’d been thinking about them for this long, there was something else. When you woke up wondering how they were doing, when you started at strangers in the street who had their smile, or their hair parted the same way… he was starting to sound like Posner, for fuck’s sake. “Irwin is in part to blame for your rapidly declining mental state, so I suggest you-” with a pointed head towards his left arm had been the last straw, when Dakin fought the urge to punch his friend and instead stood up and slammed the door as hard as he could as he left his own house, assuming Scripps would leave before he got back.

  
He walked through the park, slowly calming himself. Scripps had seen the scars, yes, but hadn’t commented when Dakin brushed them off as sports injuries. He’d always prided himself on his ability to lie- it was how he’d gotten a top degree at Oxford after all, twist the facts and know what to say and to whom- but of course, of course his best friend could see through it. He could feel himself getting angry again, but he knew he was only angry at himself. After Lockwood’s death, and Posner’s mental breakdown, and nightmares in which Irwin stood over him, marking all of his flaws in red pen, telling him “this is where your argument fell, this is where you were a cunt to Posner, this is why your dad left when you were five, this is why Scripps is spending more time with Posner and Akthar than you…” … he took a deep breath, or tried to, but his chest was tight and his hands felt numb and shaky, and his vision seemed oddly blurred, and…

  
    “Dakin?” That voice. A voice he’d only heard in dreams for the last few years. He screwed his eyes shut and carried on walking, but a hand grabbed his arm.  
    “Dakin! What’s wrong? Dakin, look at me…” and he did, he turned round and opened his eyes and “shit… Irwin…” before he realised he was speaking aloud and his head was spinning and his legs were giving way and suddenly there were strong hands around his waist and he was being pulled along and then they were sitting down on a park bench.  
    “Dakin, deep breaths, it’s ok.” His eyes were screwed shut again, chest heaving, and he didn’t know what was happening, it was all going wrong and he knew this was his fault but he didn’t know how or why-  
    “I think it’s a panic attack, Dakin, it can’t hurt you, it’s just scary, ok? You just need to breathe. Breathe with me, ok, in for four… out for four… like me, ok?”

A panic attack. Fuck. But Dakin forced himself to focus on Irwin’s voice, to breathe in time… in, out, in, until he could feel himself calming down. Irwin had one hand on Dakin’s back and one on his shoulder, and slowly Dakin began to feel like he could breathe without forcing himself to. He sat in silence for what seemed like an hour, just listening to Irwin’s measured breaths next to him, until he opened his eyes. The sunlight in the park was blinding and he was thankful there was no one around with everyone presumably at work or school. Of course Irwin would know how to calm panic attacks, Dakin thought.  
    “Dakin?”  
    “Sorry.”  
    “It’s ok, are you-”  
    “Why did you-”  
    “I’m in London for a job, I saw you in the park and you looked… distressed. Why wouldn’t I want to help?” Irwin seemed to be struggling to find the words; the calm exterior was slowly fading and the old awkward, shy Irwin Dakin had known at school was coming through.  
    “Why wouldn’t you-? Because I got myself into this, because I was a dick to Posner and to you, because I’m cocky and arrogant and for fuck’s sake this is so humiliating…” Dakin scratched at his arm instinctively, mentally cursing himself for saying anything, for being here, for… existing, for not just getting the hell out of here as soon as he heard that voice.  
    “Irwin,” and saying the name again hurt, “You should go, don’t worry about me, you’re probably busy and I’ll be fine on my own. You don’t want to see me again.”  
    “Dakin, you’re…” a deep breath, shaking slightly, “Dakin, I don’t know what’s happened since I last saw you, but I think you should come back to my place. If that’s ok. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”  
There was a long pause as Dakin processed Irwin’s words. Finally, he nodded, cursing himself for his weakness as he did so.  
    “Alright,” Irwin stood, then extended a hand to Dakin, who took it despite himself. Irwin’s hand was warm, and Dakin didn’t want to let go, but Irwin smiled and just shifted so they could walk hand in hand. They didn’t speak until they reached Irwin’s flat, the short walk helping to clear Dakin’s head enough that he could look at Irwin without feeling his chest tighten so painfully.  
  
\--

   
    “Tea? Coffee?” Irwin kicked off his shoes and looked expectantly at Dakin.  
    “No, thanks, I’m alright.” He looked around the living room. There was a sofa against one wall, opposite the window, and then a desk to the right. It was tidy, or as tidy as such a small space filled with so much paper and so many books could be. Books were on every surface, and there were precarious piles of paper and notebooks and files on the desk and the floor around it; Dakin could just imagine Irwin sorting through them all, knowing the exact place for everything even though it looked a mess to anyone else.

  
    “You can sit down, you know,” Irwin said, “You don’t have to just stand there.” He sat down on the sofa, gesturing to the space next to him.  
    “Sorry about this,” Dakin said again, “I know… you probably don’t want to see me again.”  
    “You’d be surprised.”  
    “What?”  
Irwin sighed, running a hand through untidy hair. Dakin had never thought of another person as cute before, but… well.  
    “You’ve changed,” Irwin finally said.  
    “I guess. Is that good or bad?” Dakin fidgeted nervously, pulling at a loose thread on his shirt.  
    “You’re less cocky. Less arrogant," Irwin smirked slightly, then frowned, "But… you’re obviously unhappy, and I’ve been a teacher long enough to know what it means when you scratch at your arm like that… you know…” he paused, observing as Dakin tugged his sleeves self consciously.  
    “What?” Dakin was embarrassed by the way his voice shook.  
    “Promise you won’t hate me for this? Or… or Scripps?”  
     “What?” Dakin said again, louder this time.  
     “Dakin.”  
     “I won’t hate you.”  
      “Well, when I heard about what happened to Lockwood… Scripps phoned me. Asked if he could speak to me about… well apparently Posner had told him that I’d been good at offering advice in school, and Scripps wasn’t sure who to go to, said- no offence- ‘Dakin’s not the type for emotions’ and he didn’t know what to do. So of course I said I’d meet him, we went to a café and he explained his situation.” Irwin paused.  
      “Situation?”  
      “He was getting over Lockwood’s death as well as he could. Said it had shaken him, and he was rethinking a lot, but he was doing ok. He was more worried about you.”  
      “Why?” Dakin was getting impatient, his arm was itching and his head was spinning slightly.  
      “He said you were closing in on yourself, you weren’t talking much and when you did you were snappy and irritable, or more so than usual. He said your sarcasm seemed to be hiding a lot more than just the worry of being inadequate, and that... he was worried you would hurt yourself. Or that you were already. He told me what happened to Posner, or some of it, but Posner had allowed himself to be helped when things got too much. You wouldn’t.” Irwin sighed and looked back at Dakin.  
       “Well Scripps can go fuck himself.”  
Irwin smirked slightly, an expression that Dakin had only seen once on his former teacher’s face, just before he’d gotten on Hector’s bike. The memory made him wince before he could stop himself, and Irwin placed a hand over his.  
      “Scripps was worried, and so am I. You’re not yourself. You don’t have to tell me why, but if I can help… you know I like you, Dakin, and it’s been long enough that… nevermind. Can you tell me what’s happening?”  
      “No.”  
      “Ok.”

They sat in silence for a while, sun streaming in through the window, glinting off Irwin’s glasses, until Dakin felt his legs going numb. He stood up and began to scan the nearest bookshelf.  
     “Auden?”  
     “He snogged his teachers, you know,” Dakin was shocked by how good Irwin’s impression of him was, just dripping with arrogance, and he couldn’t help but laugh, “Auden, sir, not Mr Hector.”  
     “You memorised much of what I said then?” Dakin smirked. Irwin looked somewhat embarrassed, but also relieved.  
     “Back to your old self then,” he muttered, then more loudly, in Dakin’s voice “I was wondering if there was any chance of your sucking me off. In fact, Hector would like that.”  
     “What?” Dakin whispered, feigning fear, although he didn’t entirely have to fake it. He’d been trying to block out this memory for so long.  
     “It’s a gerund, sir, your sucking me off. Hector likes gerunds. Your being scared shitless, there’s another one,” Irwin laughed, “I don’t think I got that quite right, but that was the gist. Cocky bastard.”  
     “Oh fuck off,” Dakin muttered, sitting back down on the sofa, poetry book in hand. He began to flip through it, noticing the lines Hector had made them learn.

  
     “Did you actually want me to do it?” Irwin asked after a moment, and Dakin wanted to laugh at how shy and scared he suddenly sounded.  
     “I didn’t know at the time. I was… well you know, I was a horny teenager and I knew I wanted to make you like me, and I wanted to know if you’d do it… but now… you can’t laugh at me, ok?”  
      “Sorry?”  
     “What I’m about to say, you can’t laugh at me.”  
     “Ok.”  
     “I… I didn’t know at the time, but… for the last few years… I mean I’ve had girlfriends, sure, and a boyfriend for a while, but… it never lasted, because… I always missed you. And I’ve had the time to think about it, to… Scripps told me I talked about you too much and kept telling me to just fucking phone you already, but… Irwin, I…” he couldn’t find the words.  
     “I never really stopped thinking about you, either,” Irwin smiled softly, shyly.  
     “God, I’m starting to sound like Posner…” Dakin could feel himself blushing, but Irwin was edging slightly closer.  
     “I know we both hate clichés, but… ah, fuck it,” and suddenly Irwin was kissing him, and Dakin was kissing back, and it was warm and gentle and nothing like how Dakin had always imagined it, not hungry or needy or sexual at all, just gentle. When they pulled away, Irwin leant back on the sofa and pulled Dakin to rest against him.

  
     “You got confident,” Dakin smirked, “What happened to Scared Shitless?”  
     “I’m still scared shitless, I just… there’s nothing much to lose now, and I know that’s a cliché, but I mean I’m not a teacher now, haven’t been for over a year and you’re not the cocky arrogant kid you were, and… hell, I was so fucking scared you were going to push me away all through that.”  
Dakin said nothing, just smiled.

  
      “Thanks, by the way,” he said, “for earlier. And now, but… you know.”  
      “Don’t worry. Do you want to tell me what happened?” Irwin was suddenly serious, eyes concerned and focused.  
      “Not the cocky arrogant kid anymore, I guess,” Dakin took a deep breath, “Scripps was bugging me about phoning you, kept talking about my ‘mental state’, I was having nightmares about… about you telling me… telling me everything I was doing wrong, all the reasons I’m not good enough even though I got through Oxford, you telling me I was a fraud, and… Lockwood’s death, and Posner’s breakdown… it was my fault, with Posner, you know, I shouldn’t have been such a dick, I should have helped him, I should have seen that he was so unhappy, you know? And he could have died. What if he’d offed himself? It would have been my fault.”  
      “No, it wouldn’t, Dakin.” Irwin looked so sincere that Dakin can't help but believe him, at least a little. He still felt embarrassed, not used to showing weakness.  
      “Fuck off.”  
       “You didn’t know. And he’s fine now anyway. Scripps told me he has a crush on a guy at work who might actually like him back. And Lockwood… we’re all sad. That’s the wrong word, fuck, we’re all… you know. It’s ok to feel however you feel about that. As long as you don’t feel that alone. Fuck that’s a cliché but it’s true. And… I’m sorry. About the nightmares. I wish I’d seen how you felt at the time, whatever it was you were hiding or even whatever it was that you didn’t realise yourself, I don’t know what I did to… sorry, Dakin. But you know… nothing I said in those nightmares is true, ok?”  
      “Irwin…”  
      “Dakin?”  
      “I’m not going to say it, but you know what I mean.”  
      “I know.”


End file.
